Cosatu postpones Metrorail strike in Cape Town

21 june 2016

Cape Town – Cosatu on Tuesday postponed its planned strike against Metrorail and the City of Cape Town on Wednesday, after it was deemed illegal.

Thousands and trade federation members were planning on holding a protest in front of Metrorail’s offices on the Foreshore in Cape Town.

However, Cosatu provincial secretery Tony Ehrenreich said they would now have to postponed the strike to protect its members’ job security.

Ehrenreich said Cosatu will now be going on strike on July 12 2016.

He criticised the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), who he believed would allow the protest after a meeting with them. He accused the body of hiding behind technicalities imposed on it by business interests.

Cosatu’s members have been at loggerheads with the city and transport units over poor bus and rail services since June 2015, when Cosatu filed a section 77 notice linked to the bad state of public transport in the Western Cape in June 2015.

“We have followed the required procedures that give us the right to go on a protected action,” said Ehrenreich. “The timelines in terms of the Nedlac protocol has long been exceeded. And we filed our section 77 1 d notice on 4 May 2016, well within the timelines.

“The committee then insisted that we must have another meeting to further engage on the issues, which we thought only delayed Cosatu.

“Nevertheless we had this additional meeting on 9 June 2016, which made no progress and the matter was deemed considered by the committee.

“We in the meeting stated that we would be embarking on two hour protest action on the 22 June 2016 and this was also contained in our press statement on the day.

“The Section 77 committee promised to send us the written confirmation of the decision that they announced in the meeting, which they never did until yesterday.

“When we reminded them that they had approved the application on the 9 June, they tried to hide behind technicalities requested by business, who tries to stop our protest.

“We believe that the committee is wrong and accordingly we ask that the overall convenors of Nedlac take a decision on the matter or get a declaratory order from the courts.

“The disaster that we are having now is that Nedlac without the declaratory order is advising media and companies that the procedure was not followed and that the protest action is not legal.

“This communiqué from Nedlac represents a huge risk to our members that we must mitigate to protect our members' interest.

“Accordingly Cosatu after much deliberation have decided to postpone the protest to protect the member’s jobs security.

“Cosatu however now serves formal notice to Nedlac that we want the Section 77 process clarified by the Executive, and that we will be going on strike on the 12 July 2016 with no further delays.

“We will continue mobilising our member and the community to be able to protest to show their dissatisfaction with Metrorail and Mayor Patricia de Lille and Premier Helen Zille refusal to move some busses from white areas to the Cape Flats and the rural areas, as well as the unsafe situation on the busses and trains.

“We cannot stress strongly enough that the mismanagement of the process, has prejudiced workers and subjected them to the continued dangers on the transport system, which they are trying to urgently get rectified.”

This article first appeared on Fin24, see here.